Are we headed for a repeat of last year's 'snow event' - maybe with more festive timing? Photograph: Nadine Clarke

If you're not British you might wish to look away now – we're talking weather. While our obsession with the weather may seem freakish to those who don't live here, like a good book the weather recently has had everything – record rainfall, heavy winds and one of the warmest Novembers on record. So now comes the cold.

Do not let today's mild temperatures lull you into a false sense of security because the mercury is set to plummet from Friday.

The temperature in Perth is expected to drop to -4C (25F) on Friday night with a high of 2C during the day.

On Saturday some areas of the UK will experience highs of 7C or 8C, according to the Met Office, but it will be significantly colder in other places, particularly the north-east and southern Scotland, both of which will likely struggle into positive territory during the day and be sub-zero at night.

Temperatures will be even colder in many areas on Sunday, although the good news is that the weather will be mainly settled, often bright with few showers.

The Met Office's six- to 15-day forecast is predicting more of the same, which takes us tantalisingly close to Christmas. So is there the prospect of a White Christmas?

Met Office forecaster Sarah Holland laughed: "You're the second person to ask me that this morning."

She said the cold weather would last into the early part of next week but beyond the relative safe five-day short-term forecasting horizon who knows? The Met Office is no doubt trying to avoid a repeat of the infamous "barbecue summer" prediction – it wouldn't do to for it to raise the prospect of a picturesque Christmas, only to get it wrong again.

But the bookies have cut the odds on a White Christmas. Two weeks ago they were offering 8/1, according to netweather.tv, but Paddy Power is now offering 7/2 and netweather.tv expects the odds to keep dropping.

But don't get your hopes up – there have only been official 10 White Christmas days in the last century, where a single snowflake has fallen on the Met Office roof. The last was in 1999, when the Christmas No 1 was a Westlife double A-side, bizarrely featuring the spring-celebrating Seasons in the Sun.